Here's the thing about masks. The fight isn't actually over the masks. The masks are just essentially the last straw. If you decided mask wearing + social distancing was what we needed to do, people by and large would've complied.

Instead you started with lockdowns, basically infringing on everyone's rights in ways as petty as they were arbitrary, and when that didn't stop the virus entirely, then you added masks on top of it.

Then just to add insult to injury, you break every rule you set for the rest of us including mask wearing, and when you get caught cheating, the response is not one of contrition, it's an argument about how the rules don't apply to you.

People can't fight you on opening their businesses because you can shut it down. You can clear out a party. You can lock the doors to the hospital where their loved one lay dying. You cannot, however, force the mask onto their face, so that becomes the one place they resist.

They'll come up with all manner of justifications, "masks don't work", etc. but really, it's just the only available avenue of resistance, and as far as symbols of resistance go, refusal to literally be muzzled is a pretty solid one.

I say this not because there's anything you/we can do about it now (not that I'm inclined to believe masks would have made a difference), but because when the time comes that you're not crying wolf and we really do need compliance, you'll need to do better or you'll doom us all.